It should have been blood red, like a warning. Crimson, like a siren -- or STOP. Instead, the spire of New York's One World Trade Center was lit up in it's-a-girl pink, a 408-foot reminder that the law it celebrated will mean fewer daughters, fewer mothers, fewer chances. From miles away on Wednesday night, people could see the tower flashing in the dark sky, announcing the arrival of a new evil in the war against America's children.

On the streets below, some New Yorkers shuddered. It was one thing for state leaders to carry out their threat against the unborn, and another thing altogether to revel in it -- cheering wildly as Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed the warrant for the execution of more innocents. In a state where the womb was already the most dangerous place for a child, this law begins a new era. Open season on our own. From now on, nothing stands in the way of a woman taking her baby's life -- days, hours, or even a minute before she's born. A fully grown, healthy human baby that thousands of struggling couples would give anything to have.

That's the savagery New York leaders call "progress." That's the "achievement" Cuomo turned into a pink beacon, shining "a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow."

Call it health care, call it a reproductive right -- call it choice. But whatever you call it, abortion has just massively expanded its target zone in New York State. Under the Reproductive Health Act, late-term abortion is the new normal. And where there's late-term abortion, there's almost always infanticide. This law guarantees it, sweeping away a large chunk of the penal codes that protected abortion survivors. Thanks to this Act, Kermit Gosnell, and his bloodstained, cat-infested, third-world excuse for a clinic, would be untouchable. The Resurgent's Stacey Lennox puts that into its gruesome context. "For those of you who saw the movie [Gosnell], Baby B would not be considered a victim."

"Person," as far as this law is concerned, means a human being who has been born and is alive. Not a second before, and maybe -- without infant protections -- not few seconds after either. Midwives and nurse practitioners can also perform abortions under the law, meaning that this law doesn't just put unborn lives on the line -- but women's as well. Welcome back to the dark age of unregulated horror houses with rusty equipment and untrained staff who botch abortions and kill mothers. Progress, indeed.

"Let's do a global game reset," Charlotte Lozier President Chuck Donovan writes. "The U.S. is one of only seven nations on the planet to allow elective abortion after 20 weeks, or more than halfway through pregnancy. New York -- allowing non-physicians to carry out abortions, voiding Born Alive Infant protections, surpassing its previous 24-week limit, compelling all insurance carriers to cover it, and denying protections for unborn victims of third-party violence -- is among the most permissive of our 50 states. There is no jurisdiction in the world to its left on abortion. None."

Where are the feminists? Where are the mobs screaming that black lives matter in a city where more African-American babies are already aborted than born alive? As the Rev. Michel Faulkner of New Horizon Church once said, "My people, the African-American people, did not ... endure 300 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow law to face genocide in the 21st century."

"A woman's power to decide whether she will give birth or not..." Gloria Steinem argued, "is our most basic democratic right." Murder is the mark of tyrants -- not democracy. And thank God, some New Yorkers are brave enough to recognize that. In Syracuse, far from the big city and its pink glow, Jon Speed didn't know how to respond to what he'd just seen. So, he did what he could. He closed his used book store and posted this sign in protest: "Today is a day of mourning in New York State. We will not collect sales tax today for a tyrannical government that murders babies. We will resume regular business tomorrow, collecting sales tax under duress. End Abortion Now."

Asked later why he did it, he said, "I obviously can't stop paying sales tax to the state of New York — I can't do that altogether, although I would like to, but I can't. So I thought, 'Well, I'll put a sign up on the front window of the store and say we're closed [Wednesday] and express our thoughts on it, just so we can make a statement.'"

Hopefully, there will be enough Jon Speeds in New York to rise up and end this nightmare. Sometimes, I think we become so focused on Congress and what's going on in Washington, D.C. that people forget the importance of being involved locally -- on city councils, school boards, and legislatures. The people behind this evil will come again -- to your state. If there's any hope of stopping them, we need to engage now.

Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.